Recently, i had to move from nixos to windows against my will simpy because of anti cheats. While i dont game that much, the few games i enjoy playing are all online with some kind of anti cheat. I used to dual boot but i was tired of having to wait for my slow hdd to load windows (i only have one ssd). I literally used linux for everything else but because of anti cheats i am forced to move to windows. I managed to make it a little better by using wsl2 and removing bloatware but it will never be the same as linux
There’s unfortunately not much to do.
Linux is inherently less “secure” to developers. They have to sacrifice anti-chest efficiency to enable them on Linux, which is a tradeoff most aren’t willing to make.
Most every game I play requires me to stay on windows. I don’t really get any enjoyment out of single player games anymore. So windows stays as the primary OS and that’s likely never going to change.
So don’t get into those games in the first place. There are so many games available. You will never exhaust them all.
I primarily play competitive fps games. They’re more or less the only genre of gaming that’s any kind of fun anymore imo.
I don’t enjoy single player games. I own literally thousands of dollars of indie/AA single player games that I don’t enjoy, so I’ve stopped buying new ones. I’m simply not interested in non-competitive games. They’re not fun and I’d rather not play them.
Personally I don’t really enjoy multiplayer games much because they are all so stale nowadays.
I guess I grew up with dedicated servers, map editors, and mods coming out all the time but most of the modern ones are so fixed on DLC and battlepasses.
You’re essentially the opposite from me. I keep trying MP and it just doesn’t click for me. I played Rocket League a bit with friends, but after 20-30 hours, I got tired of it and didn’t pick it up again. I used to love FPS MP, but it just feels so repetitive these days. I’ve tried MP strategy games, and it’s just the same repetitive thing. It becomes more about flawless performance of the same task and less about experiencing something new.
I love SP games with good story, unique gameplay, or immersive atmosphere. There’s just so much variety in the AA and indie space that there’s always something new to experience.
I haven’t played any of the recent big MP games, and I’m much more satisfied as a gamer than I was when i played them.
I guess I don’t see the appeal anymore. But then the are people who are the exact opposite and see the appeal of SP gaming. And I think that’s interesting.
Repetitive is honestly what I like about them. I don’t need to think about a story, don’t need to follow any path and don’t need to think. New experiences mean paying attention to a story I really don’t care about or mechanics that aren’t really mechanically complicated, just puzzles.
I play games to turn off my brain and do better at something. Chasing that flawless performance is what makes the games fun for me. I’ve played nearly 4000 hours of Apex Legends in the last 5 years. (Granted a majority was during the pandemic where I was playing every day for 6-12 hours) and continue to play, even though it’s getting a little stale.
To be honest I don’t care about story in 75% of the movies I watch either. So I think it’s just a personality trait. And also probably the super sever ADHD
Interesting, because that’s pretty much exactly the opposite of why I play games.
When I want to get good at something, I go to work. My job is pretty repetitive, but there’s a ton of room for improving my skillsets, and periodically there are new challenges. If that’s not cutting it, I’ll exercise. But playing the same game over and over feels really bad to me, so I just don’t do it. The only two games I have >100 hours recorded in are Europa Universalis IV and Cities Skylines, the first is because I really like playing different countries (I have >800 hours) and the second is because I like trying different city structures. Even then, after a campaign, I need a few weeks or even months before I play again. I get bored in RPGs when I get too OP, though I’ll stick around if the story is interesting.
So I’m always looking for a new experience, hence why I play so many indie games.
Fair. Everyone games for different reasons.
I’m a developer, so my day-to-day work is very much “new” every week. When I go home I definitely want something repetitive and easy. I’ve never had a problem doing repetitive tasks in gaming. I played exclusively modded minecraft for 6 years, so this is nothing new to me.
I honestly think the last Single Player game I completed was Bioshock Infinite when it released. (And Doom Eternal I think) Most of the time when a game is released and I buy it I’ll get 5-10 hours in and get supremely bored of the mechanics.
I’m getting home and explicitly not looking for new experiences, so I definitely see where we’re different there.
I’m a developer too, so I guess just different strokes for different folks.
I really like developing software, so half the time I’ll work on a personal project or something when I get home (work is team lead for Python and TypeScript, hobbies are Rust or Godot), and the rest I’ll split between reading/writing books and playing video games. I lose interest in projects, books, and games easily, so I tend to be constantly looking for something new.
Different strokes I guess. I’m quite introverted, so it’s more draining for me to play MP than a complex puzzle game or a “git gud” game like Dark Souls.
So? I play competitive FPS games on Linux.
But it’s not. Easy anti-cheat, for example, works on Linux. The problem isn’t with Linux, it’s that developers don’t target Linux, so their anti-cheat systems don’t work on Linux.
And that’s fine with me, though it would help Linux adoption if those games worked on Linux. But it’s not an inherent limitation of Linux, it’s just something devs need to proactively support.
Correction, EAC barely works on linux. Apex is just safer because Respawn themselves are putting in some effort.
Well yeah, you can’t expect a third-party anti-cheat to solve all of your problems, each game is going to have idiosyncrasies.
I think Valve’s Overwatch system is a fantastic example of ways to innovate without compromising a user’s security or requiring platform-specific cheat detection. It’s probably not enough on its own (those reviewers need data), but to me it’s preferable to something more invasive like BattleEye. A lot of that can be done server-side, by running player movements through an AI model that detects players that fit certain patterns, or don’t fit common patterns.
So EAC works, but it works at a different level than it does on windows. EAC does become less secure on both platforms when Linux support is enabled from my understanding. BattleEye, Vanguard and Riots AC don’t work on Linux either, which is a significant portion of major games right now.
I’d argue it is an inherent limitation of Linux, as it’s so open that it’s harder to validate a user isn’t using 3rd party programs to cheat.
I think it’s an inherent limitation of client-side anticheat.
I think initiatives like Valve’s Overwatch system is a much better approach because it relies on players who have a stake in eliminating cheaters instead of a constant war against whatever flavor of the week cheating engine people are using. Pair that with an AI model that looks for patterns (both whether players fit cheating patterns or don’t fit expected patterns) and player-jurors will have enough information to make a call.
But that kind of initiative takes more effort than just integrating an off-the-shelf anti-cheat system, it forces companies to actually care about how their game runs on customer machines.
Personally I find Overwatch a horrible idea. It’s not terribly effective and relies on players, who are particularly unreliable at determining if someone is cheating. I believe those decisions should be entirely out of the hands of the players.
AI is still to expensive to run checks on every action that every player makes. Also any sort of automated system can’t be clearly banning people.
It doesn’t need to be realtime, as long as the cheaters get caught after some days. So take samples from every player and run them through a learning algorithm and take more samples the more suspicious someone is.
The more important thing is how you deal with cheaters once you find them. I really like the idea of increasing lag to cheaters instead of outright banning them so you waste their time more than anything. And then if you find out they’re not cheating, it’s easy to just drop them from the pool.